It was only a couple of months ago that Sony introduced its new budget smartphone - the Xperia tipo - but after implementing a few spec boosts and increasing the size of the screen, they're ready for round 2, and this time they've brought the Xperia miro into the ring.

There's no doubt that the miro is still very much a budget smartphone, it's available for £150 SIM-free, but Sony has managed to make it look and feel the part thanks to a nice plastic material covering the back, and an LED which shines between the screen and capacitive touch buttons each time you turn on the display.

Who doesn't love a good software update? Today, Sprint is beginning to rollout a minor upgrade to the Photon Q that brings a few incremental improvements. Sorry, there are no Jelly Beans to be seen, but there are still some things to be excited about. Here are a few of the key features of the newest build:

Hi, Android! Sorry your present is a little late, it took a while to wrap it. Five years ago yesterday, Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt joined other members of the newly-formed Open Handset Alliance to announce the Android operating system. Back then, we were still nearly a year away from an actual Gphone (and yes, people really called it that) and Sprint and T-Mobile were the only US carriers even interested. Now, Android is installed on over 400 million devices, nearly every carrier in the world wants a piece of the action, and the platform as a whole is the single largest mobile OS ever.

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of live wallpapers. I love the idea, but in practice I've never found one that suits my taste and is compelling enough to stay on my device for more than a few minutes. That changed today with Cypher Cove's release of Audio Glow to the Play Store.

Audio Glow is actually a stand-alone app with a similarly named LWP companion which also launched today. The app is a music visualizer, which in itself is not so exciting.

The DROID DNA (or DLX ... or DIX) is a phone we've seen running around in leaked photos and Verizon MAP spreadsheets for some time now, but the date of an official launch has generally been elusive. Evleaks suggested early December, and given today's announcement of a Verizon/HTC event next week, that seems to be an increasingly likely timeframe.

The DROID DNA is largely believed to be a DROIDified version of HTC's J Butterfly, a 5" 1080p, quad-core Snapdragon-packing beast of a phone.

It never rains, but it pours. Yesterday Samsung posted the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean source code for both new Galaxy Tab models and the AT&T Galaxy Note II. Today they're keeping the open source train rolling with the first available code for the new Galaxy S III Mini, the flagship model's 4-inch brother-from-another-mother. The 4.1 code is available now from Samsung's developer website.

If you're wondering why the GSIII Mini needs separate code from the standard Galaxy S III, remember that it's actually quite a different beast under the hood.

Hey, does the idea of another company making another proprietary game controller for games that require compatibility with said controller in order to work excite you? No? Me neither. But GreenThrottle, a new startup co-founded by Guitar Hero co-creator Charles Huang and two ex-Palm employees wants you to get excited.

Oh man, they're having so much fun - how could this idea ever not be a success?

Sarcasm aside, GreenThrottle does have the benefit of a more serious team leading its gamepad project, but compared to every other controller / TV gaming solution I've seen, this seems to bring nothing new to the table.

Welcome to the newer, friendlier Motorola, where every would-be Android modder is catered to. After creating developer editions of both the new Droid RAZR M and Droid RAZR HD for Verizon (the first from the manufacturer-carrier combo since the XOOM) Google's new acquisition is spreading the love to AT&T. The company announced the ATRIX HD Developer Edition, complete with unlockable bootloader, via its Twitter account today. There's currently no price or date available, beyond the fact that it will be available soon.

Corroborating some pretty hard evidence of the physical Google Wallet card's existence we revealed last week, TechCrunch noticed this morning that a definite reference to that card has appeared on Wallet's official support site. More importantly, though, this confirms my own suspicions about the future of the Google Wallet app in light of the physical card: near-universal compatibility.

According to the support page, the new non-NFC version of the Wallet app will be compatible with any Android 2.3.3+ device, which is pretty much the vast majority of Android devices out there.